Apple is officially killing its line of routers

Apple is officially abandoning the router business, with the company announcing today that it will be discontinuing its AirPort, AirPort Extreme, and Time Capsule routers. Apple will reportedly continue to offer bug fixes and security patches for the devices going forward, but the company is selling off all of its remaining AirPort hardware while supplies last.

"We're discontinuing the Apple AirPort base station products," Apple has announced. "They will be available through Apple.com, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers while supplies last."

The death of Apple's router business has been a long time coming. Back in November 2016 Apple disbanded the hardware division responsible for its routers, which last saw an update for 802.11ac Wi-Fi back in 2013. Since then, the company's AirPort offerings have been slowly rendered obsolete by the rising popularity of mesh Wi-Fi systems like Eero, Google Wifi, and the Linksys Velop (the last of which Apple actually sells in its stores now.)

The company noted that it might make routers again someday, if it finds a way to out-innovate the competition.